Finding an Angel Read Free Page A

people keep telling me he’s lying to me. Most days I can ignore them, but some days they make me cry. I like being around Drew. It’s not so sad when he’s around me.
    “You can ask,” I say unsure of where he’s going with this.
    “How close is too close? I don’t want to get in your safe space you told me about, but I just don’t know where that is.”
    “Hold your arms straight out to your sides,” I instruct and he does. I do the same. “This is how far I need you away to be able to breathe easier. The bigger or older you are the further you need to be away from me.”
    He frowns. “So you’ll push me further and further away?”
    I shrug because really I don’t know. Every day though, he respected my boundaries and helps me pick flowers and we play all the time. He hasn’t called me a mean name or laughed at me. Though he has told me that he’s sad for me because of what others have done to me. That made me realize… he is different. He is my only friend… my best friend.

Present time…
     
     
    Here I stand with almost twenty years having gone past since I met the incredible Jessa Rawlins. Twenty-Seven years old now and everything still plays before my eyes as if it’s just happening. Our life together came down to moments, memories, tests, but most of all friendship and a love you can’t find but once in your life. Being with Jessa, well, at times it tested my will power, my patience, but most of all my heart. Though, I spent many years ‘saving’ her, she saved me. Moving to this house when I was seven brought me a woman that I couldn’t stand to be without.
    Twenty years, I shake my head at the amount of time. Twenty years seems like a long time, but when it’s meant with the time you spend with someone you love… It’s not long at all. It’s almost as if I’ve blinked and I stand in the very spot that I first met the woman of my dreams. The woman that changed me. The woman that will forever hold my heart.
    Sadly, she is also the woman that fights an invisible battle. As the man that loves her completely, I can’t fight for her or with the invisible problem that was tearing her apart. All I can do is pray with her, hold her hand when she needs me to, or help her forget when the opportunity arises.
    For so many years, even as a young kid only seeing her as my best friend, I constantly asked how I could help fight what I can’t see. The only answer I was ever given was to just be there for her because I was special to her if she let me in.
    Smiling, I look off in the distance and remember the day she let me in just a little more.

    Ten years old…
    “Jessa? You out here,” I hear her giggle as I call for her.
    “No,” she says, followed quickly by, “Dang it!”
    She sits up and her beautiful light brown hair falls around her shoulders. The longer I know her the more I realize that she’s a living angel. We’ve been friends now for three years and every day I come home from school, I come right over here. Honestly, I just look forward to spending time with her.
    It’s like looking through a kaleidoscope and seeing all the beautiful colors. No matter how many times you turn it, it looks different. That’s what she did for me. There was light in my life when she is around.
    Basically becoming an only child after my older brother fights overseas for our country and he’s gone more than he’s home, she gives me a reason to laugh again. To smile. She finds such pleasures in the small things that I have taken advantage of for so many years.
    “You always find me,” she pouts and looks so cute doing it.
    I’m a ten year old boy. I may not fully understand what is going on, but I notice girls. Well, I notice Jessa at least. Every day she gets prettier and prettier. When I talk to my brother on the phone, he teases me about her and I turn red and yell at him. Dad says it’s normal and it’s nothing to feel embarrassed about. But with Jessa… Mentally, I shake my head. Jessa is